Graphics Card Performance Over Time

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Will1335

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Dec 1, 2015
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I have been recently looking at graphics cards for my first build. I have planned my build to be around the $500 mark. The dilemma I've been having is whether to get a gtx 950 for around $130 or get a R9 380 for $170. But I am not sure how long the 950 will be able to run games at high or medium settings. Does it take only a year or will it be able to last a couple of years?

I also Have a question about SLI/Crossfire. The budget motherboards I have been looking at have 1 pcie 3.0 and 1 pcie 2.0, so will it not be worth it to run sli/crossfire with a pcie 2.0 or is not a huge performance disadvantage.
 
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The R9 380 is faster and you should go for it if you can afford it. The GTX 960 is also an option as it only costs a little more than the 950. I bought my 5870s a while ago, starting off with one and adding a second one shortly after. Now I can't run every game on max settings at 1080p like I used to when I bought the cards, but I can run most games on pretty high settings. How long the card lasts will just depend you and the games you play. It makes sense to spend a little more to get a card that will last you longer. As for your board I'm guessing you have a 16x PCi-e 3.0 and a 4x 2.0. While you can run crossfire that way I wouldn't recommend it. Even so you could upgrade your motherboard and add a second card later. Of course that...
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firefoxx04

firefoxx04

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Jan 23, 2009
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Well if it means anything, the 6850 1GB I have still plays games at 1080p. I might not play at the highest settings but it does do it. The same goes for my 7850.

I would just go with what you can afford. The R9 380 is the faster card in most cases.


Crossfire and SLI require 2 PCI x16 slots wired to the CPU. That usually means you need 2 3.0 slots (not in all cases). The motherboard specs should list whether or not it is supported.

Honestly, if you are worried about crossfire or sli, go with a more expensive motherboard, cpu, and power supply. IT will be worth it later if you decide to run multiple cards.
 
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megamanx00

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The R9 380 is faster and you should go for it if you can afford it. The GTX 960 is also an option as it only costs a little more than the 950. I bought my 5870s a while ago, starting off with one and adding a second one shortly after. Now I can't run every game on max settings at 1080p like I used to when I bought the cards, but I can run most games on pretty high settings. How long the card lasts will just depend you and the games you play. It makes sense to spend a little more to get a card that will last you longer. As for your board I'm guessing you have a 16x PCi-e 3.0 and a 4x 2.0. While you can run crossfire that way I wouldn't recommend it. Even so you could upgrade your motherboard and add a second card later. Of course that depends on how often you want to upgrade and when you upgrade if you just plan to go with a new GPU anyway
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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Today, for SLI / CF you will want a z97 board which will typically have two-three PCIE 3 slots (more with a PEX chip). On Z97 you have 20 lanes. That means 1st card will run at X16; if you add a 2nd card, they will run at x8, x8. SLI doesn't support X4, but CF does. With CF, you can run x8, x8, x4 / SLI x8, x8.
 
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megamanx00

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That's not a board to go crossfire with. You could but the performance will seldom be what you expect. Also as far as the 270x they don't make those anymore so if you wait too long to get a second one you will likely end up overpaying. AMD should just make the 370X here which is just a 270 with the option for more RAM, rather than selling the Pitcairn based 370 which just has some blocks disabled. I suppose that would position it too close to the 380 which is the only reason I can think of that they wouldn't.
 
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JackNaylorPE

JackNaylorPE

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One of the reasons that you see posts that "it's always better to use one powerful single card, then 2 less powerful ones" comes from experience with low end cards. For example, the 980 Ti, 980, 970 SLI very well ... the 960 not so much.... on the other hand the 650 Ti Boost was ridiculous in the SLI performance it gave tyou compared to the much more expensive 680.

Also the performance benefit you get from say twin AMD X70x's might say get you close to the performance of am AMD X90 .... but while the 2 GB X70x might top the X90 at say 1600 x 1200 .... it might be limited at 1080p / 1440p because the 390 will have 4GB. In short, as you drop down in card lowest priced card that supports SLI / CF may not perform optimally. Here's some examples:

Two 560 Ti were 40% faster than the 580 which was $100 more.
Two 960s didn't far so well even against the 970 and the single 970 wuda been cheaper.

perfdollar_1920.gif
 
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